The Lemur, she has returneth.

September 16, 2008 | 7 Comments

And just in time for her 47th birthday. She is in search of the the wonderful, flaming, sweet cakes. Give her the sweet cakes and all shall live peacefully in the village…

The UKLemur, Mr. Hulme, is celebrating his birthday today as well. He is not as old as this Lemur, but his cakes - they are just as sweet. May a happy birthday-ish delicious time be had by you, Mr. Hulme!

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In non-lemur news…

Goddamn. Post surgical depression sucks with a capital f-ing S.

Thanks to everyone for waiting. Thanks to you all for your extraordinary patience. And a special thank you to those who held my hand and walked me through it.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress.

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Everything is going fairly well in The ‘Hood. All of the rowdy neighbor kids are back in school. The fire damage a couple houses down is slowly being repaired. The sights and sounds of autumn are in the air.

But what is this?

Someone who lives within hearing range of our home has a new live-in girlfriend. And they get tipsy and loud on a regular basis while sitting in front of bonfires in their backyard. And have lover’s spats in front of their house at 2 am. AND… they like to do it in their kitchen. Noisily.

They are relatively nice folk, though, so it’s somewhat tolerable and amusing.

However, I feel bad for them - because little do they know, every goofy, noisy thing they do will be talked about on this blog. Bwahahaha.

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And now another tidbit for those of us who are occasionally afflicted with the dreaded earworm. You know, those songs that get stuck in your head and cycle repeatedly until you pass out or have to visit your shrink to get rid of them? That is an earworm.

Here’s my latest one. It’s from some commercial for Norfolk Southern trainlines and I was lucky enough to find it online. Ravi Krishnaswami of Sacred Noise in New York and Steve Kolander of J. Walter Thompson in Atlanta composed it especially for NS.

Now that I have learned it and have sung it a million time in its entirety, it may fade away. (I doubt it, though - because I will hear *you* singing it obsessively and it will start me up again. Ha!)

You Don’t Need Me

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That’s all for now, kittens. More again soon.

XoxoXOxox

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In, out, back.

August 14, 2008 | 14 Comments

Well, alrighty then. The surgery went smoothly and I escaped Iowa City with all of my girly parts intact. (Thank you, God!)

I don’t want to go into too many of the gory details, but here are a few:

The doctors stuck the Hubble Telescope up inside of the ol’ cooter and didn’t see anything that looked obviously malignant. So, they totally cleaned house - t o t a l l y - to the bare walls, popped in a Mirena IUD and then waited patiently while I woke up. Apparently I took my time, as I am known to do.

Then I got saltines, apple juice, something bulky with “wings”, and Jerry drove us home while I snored in the passenger seat. The whole thing, there and back, 13 hours.

The gnarliest thing I can tell you is that my uterus, which is normally supposed to be a tidy, upside-down pear shape, was as big and hard as a softball because of the excessive overgrowth of endometrial tissue inside. (Yes, I know. It makes me weak in the knees to even type it. Uck.) Everything they removed is now being examined for malignancy and I will get the rest of details when I go back in two weeks for the post-op check up.

I am just taking it one day at a time right now, feeling MUCH better, and doing my best to remain optimistic about the upcoming pathology reports.

Thank you all so much for your love and support. Lots of people think that online friendships and blog-to-blog relationships aren’t as “real” as face-to-face ones. Those people people couldn’t be more wrong - and they are missing out on an abundance of warmth, encouragement and genuine care.

Thank you again for the TLC. I love you guys.

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Updates, opinions and fiery explosions. (Oh my!)

August 7, 2008 | 8 Comments

Latest health report:

I now have a surgery scheduled for August 13th - see recent entries for gory details - at the Gyn/Oncology Center at University of Iowa.

Best case scenario: I go in, the surgeons do their thing, and I get to go home the same day.

Non-best case scenario: I go in, the surgeons do their thing, say “Uh-oh…”, and I am there until they say I can leave.

It’s strange. A week ago I was having a huge amount of anxiety about the whole thing, but now that everything has been scheduled and there is a plan somewhat in place, I am just focused on recovering from whatever happens.

I do believe the positive energies that you all are sending my way is helping, so if it’s not too much of an imposition…
send more.

(Thank you.)

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Now, in national mysteries…

The missing child case of Caylee Anthony is really starting to piss me off. The little girl’s mother, Casey, is a pathological liar and in my opinion, the authorities should go Gitmo on her and water-board that bitch until she tells everything she knows.

And then they should do the same to Grandma and Grampa Anthony because anyone with half a brain knows they are also withholding details and obstructing justice while they scramble to cover their asses.

I think there are two likely possibilities concerning what may have happened to Caylee, one simple and one complex.

The first: The stupid twit mother, Casey, left the girl in the car while she was off partying and doing God-only-knows, and the child died accidentally somehow. The mom freaked out and tried to dispose of the body, and is now leading police on a wild goose chase, hoping that the remains will never be recovered and she can escape blame.

The second: Someone took the girl as “collateral” or to use as leverage against Casey and the rest of her family, and is hiding her until they get what they want. (Organized crime connections, drug dealers, etc.) Mind you, I think if that is the case, it all started with the immature mother doing something ignorant and getting in over her head. She then assumed that her family would eventually bail her out of the predicament - because they always have - and she would get the kid back unharmed. The whole family is now threatened to have their connections exposed and that is why they are blocking the investigation.

Yeah, yeah. I know that Grandpa George is a former cop, but honestly, I don’t think that means what it used to anymore. Not in this corrupt society.

Besides, he looks like he could be from the cast of The Sopranos to me. George “The Eye Brow” Ant-nee, or something like that.

Just my opinion. I could be wrong, of course. But if they find my body at the bottom of the Mississippi River wearing cement shoes, you’ll know I wasn’t far off the mark.

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In neighborhood news…

There was a major house fire just two doors up the block from us. We were just arriving home from Iowa City, exhausted from 10 hours of pre-op tests and driving, and when we got close to our house we saw that traffic was being diverted. From about a block away, we could see a dozen firefighters on our front lawn and it looked like smoke was rolling out of our roof.

Talk about freaking the fuck out. We both felt our adrenaline hit 100% almost instantly. Jer got out of the car, worked through the crowd and got a hold of one of the policemen on the scene. It wasn’t our house - it was the neighbors’ on the other side of Bumbling Bill’s ~~pigsty~~ house.

From what the fire marshal can tell, the fire started in the garage. One car’s gas tank exploded, which set off a chain reaction to a nearby truck’s gas tank, and possibly a third car’s as well. Our neighborhood is an older one with an alley behind houses, and everybody’s garage is in the back of their place. Well, the fire was so hot, every garage in range had the vinyl siding melted off of it. Some of the nearby houses have melted siding. (Ours is a little rippled now, and we’re having an insurance agent coming to look at it.)

And get this: The house where the fire originated has *steel* siding and even that was melted off. The garage burned to the ground, the vehicles are total losses, and the back of the residence and roof is pretty much ruined.

It was awful. I want to take pictures of it to show you guys, but it seems kind of weird to do that. I’ll think about it and maybe ask the owners if they would mind.

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Anyway, that’s the latest from The ‘Hood, The World, and The Uterus.

I hope you are all healthy and staying cool in the summer heat. More again soon, kitty cats.

~ XOXoox

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Pssst….

July 24, 2008 | 2 Comments

I’m making way for new inventory in the jewelry shop, so…

The “LAST CHANCE SALE” is now in progress! Everything in the shop has been reduced between 25%-75%! Why last chance? Because if an item doesn’t sell at these LOW PRICES, it will be disassembled and made into something else - or the gemstones will be sold as overstock supplies.

Even if you are another jewelry artisan and simply want the piece for its components, I certainly won’t be offended - your design idea may be much better than mine. Many items are priced way below cost!

Big sale. Pass it on…

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Oh, the Lemur. She is lazy.

July 23, 2008 | 1 Comment

Last night was the deepest sleep I’ve had in months. Ahhhh. And today, I ate really good food - and not in a rush because I was running late for some appointment. And then I went to see my dear friend Beej who cut my hair perfectly as always.

When I came home, I got Randy and Maizey high on catnip and watched them playfully beat the snot out of each other. Of course, I egged them on by throwing toys that neither of them could resist chasing - and they were so wasted they would collide and smack each other around for having the nerve to chase the toy that was obviously thrown just for them!

It was a fun, lazy day and I needed it. I might just have one tomorrow too.

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Jerry called from the road a little while ago - the RAGRAI bikers are staying in Tama, Iowa tonight. This was the forth day of the ride and he said it was grueling because they bucked the wind the whole way. I think they went about 70 miles, too.

That’s either some kind of extreme dedication or a psychiatric disorder that they haven’t quite put a name on yet. Haha.

I mean, I simply can’t think of anything I’d love to do for an entire day that made my butt sore, my whole body sweat, and leave me panting and breathless. (No, not even THAT, you perv.)

Unless I had a really good lubricant.

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Totally different subject now:

A friend recommended a book to me a couple weeks ago and I’m right in the middle of it. Feeling stuck on creative projects? Procrastinating on doing your life’s work? Get this book immediately. It will kick you in the ass, pat you on the back, then kick you in the ass again.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Very good book. Just read it; you can thank me later.

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Alrighta, time for another good night’s sleep. Be well… I’ll talk with you again soon.